Govt Announces NBN Satellite Launch

[mtv]

RURAL Australians could be just months away from faster internet after the the government confirmed new communications satellites will be launched in September.

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull told a coalition joint party room meeting on Tuesday the service was expected to be commercially available in the first half of 2016.
The rollout of the NBN had ramped up in June with 436,000 fibre-to-the-node connections, he said.

[efab]

at this rate I might see faster speeds by 2045, only problem is by then I will well and truly be in the ground

[Tiny]

That's good to know, thanks mtv.

I was actually trying to get confirmation of this a few weeks ago as

[gordon_s1942]

I asked our dickhead National Party Federal MP about this a few weeks ago but I all I got out of him apart from a few whinnies and hoof pounding was the usual party line platitudes on how good everything was.

It will be interesting to see if its any faster and cheaper along with less lag as experienced using the present IPSAT internet system so I wont be looking to change to it any time soon.

[Antennaman]

Edit for those that don't want to log in: smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/nbns-sky-muster-satellite-gets-launch-date-20150813-giy5ec.html

[Tiny]

Hmm, interesting in that article it states launch = October 1st, yet further down states it will be in service from next year.

the first of the two NBN satellites, dubbed "Sky Muster", would launch on October 1.

Scheduled to launch from Guiana Space Centre in South America, Sky Muster is set to progressively deliver broadband to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote Australia from next year.

I was told by a tech from Activ8 last week, that I will be transferred to the new Long Term NBN Sat in December.

I guess it will take until next year to transfer everyone over to the new sat, so they don't want to get your hopes up.

[gordon_s1942]

This may depend on where this satellite is located in relation to those currently being used.
If its in a Co Orbit with say Ipstar, then like with C1/D3 it can be an almost seamless changeover but if its in a slot all by itself, then someone will have to come out and realign your dish to use it and that will take time, hence the long forecast.

[jgm]

It will be interesting to see if its any faster and cheaper along with less lag as experienced using the present IPSAT internet system so I wont be looking to change to it any time soon.

The lag is mainly due to the transit time for the signal to reach the satellite & return. The ONLY way to reduce this is to change the distance to the satellite (e.g. by going to low orbit) but this won't be happening in the near future. This latency makes VOIP over satellite a no go, as anything over 250ms round trip latency (ITU recommendation) makes conversation difficult. Consider that the average latency from customer to satellite to NBN operations centre is around 500ms, then you have to factor in the delays from your VOIP service provider to the other end. The result is that customers have to adopt different conversational techniques to a normal telephone call - i.e. similar to a half duplex radio conversation where a speaker uses a code word such as "over" to signify that the other party is free to talk.

Now for normal Internet traffic, there is also an issue. This is again caused by latency imposed by the satellite, but in this case it affects TCP (the main protocol for normal traffic). This is because of the maximum number of packets that can be sent before they need to be acknowledged by the receiver. For any given bandwidth (assuming similar packet loss percentage), this number will always be lower with longer latency. I won't go into the complexities of TCP here, but suffice to say that for a reliable connection the sender is always trying to send the maximum number of packets the link can sustain. It does this by increasing the number of packets it sends until it doesn't receive an ACK in it's time limit. As the latency increases, the number of ACKs outstanding is reduced because of the timeouts. If we assume that latency is 500ms each way and that a packet is 1.5kB, you can see that if the window size is reduced to 1 (i.e. each packet must be ACK'd before the next can be sent) that regardless of the bandwidth of the link, the throughput is 1.5kB/s. In practice it isn't as bad as this, but a satellite link will never be as fast as a landline.

[spook]

[QUOTE=jgm;670476]This latency makes VOIP over satellite a no go, as anything over 250ms round trip latency (ITU recommendation) makes conversation difficult./QUOTE]

We had voip over satellite for years, when we first got it it was terrible and almost unusable. When we switched from the biggest internet sat provider with their horrible service and speeds and went with another provider, voip worked really well. Virtually no delay, no noise, clear and cheaper, plus we got much more bandwidth and our internet worked flawlessly.

Then we got a letter from NBN saying we now had wifi available and found we could get 12/1 unlimited for $55, compared to our 8gig for $35 and jumped from 23kbs to megabit speeds. Now can actually watch video's and not have to worry about using up our allocation, big improvement.

Dropped voip, as our mobile plans give us what we need for a really good price, compared to the corporate rip offs.

[jgm]

[QUOTE=spook;670483]

Then we got a letter from NBN saying we now had wifi available and found we could get 12/1 unlimited for $55, compared to our 8gig for $35 and jumped from 23kbs to megabit speeds. Now can actually watch video's and not have to worry about using up our allocation, big improvement.

Streaming video (or anything for that matter) uses UDP rather than TCP, which is a major difference. TCP is a RELIABLE transport mechanism, which means that everything that is sent is guaranteed to be received. UDP on the other hand doesn't care if data is received - it is a best effort approach. For streamed data, it doesn't matter if an occasional packet is dropped. e.g.If a streamed movie loses a frame every now & then, you would hardly notice it. As the reliability decreases, the picture (or more importantly the audio) starts to lose integrity. The same thing happens when path latency varies too much (jitter). Fortunately satellite communication doesn't suffer from these issues in normal circumstances.

[gordon_s1942]

When I was with SkyMesh, it was understood VoiP wasnt a viable option but if I paid a higher monthly I could use it but because of the cost and not having a need for it, I never bothered to ask about it.

[OSIRUS]

NBN takes aim at satellite broadband leechers

[gordon_s1942]

Excuse my obvious ignorance but I cant follow what this is about.
If I pay a fee to get say 50GB per month, doesnt it 'cut off' when that amount is used before the end of the Month either completely or goes back to 'Dial Up' Speed depending on your plan?
Also I didnt think I could control the upload/download speed, or can you?
How can you 'leach' what you cant control?
To me it sounds as though their telling you that you can buy 50GB's alright BUT break it down over the 'Month' to 1.2GB per Day as means to 'spread the load' and have more users based on a probability that not all will be online at once.

[OSIRUS]

I think they are saying the Satellite NBN will be using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) technology to see if you are using Torrent / peer to peer technology ...... (which may be a big down loader of Data)

peer to peer uses the term "Leaching" to mean downloading from the "Swarm" & "Seeding' to represent uploading content to the "Swarm", The Swarm is basically all the people involved in sharing the content,

They say it is only being used to identify large Data users that may "exhaust" the available data provided by the satellite .....

But as Gordon says most satellite internet plans have data Download limits etc ATM ....


DPI is also a tool that could be used to identify sharing of Movies & Music etc ...

Potential for copyright infringement clamp-down?

Congestion management has traditionally been a telco codeword for throttling of peer-to-peer traffic such as torrents.

Deep packet inspection allows network operators to, among other things, detect specific P2P application signatures usually found during the initial message exchange between two network hosts. It can also classify all traffic for that conversation.

Other telcos such as Telstra have previously used DPI to tackle P2P traffic but denied the clampdown was related to tackling the issue of online piracy.

NBN similarly indicated its use of DPI would not extend to enforcing copyright rules.

"That's not the intention," an NBN spokesperson said. "It is to manage the fair use policy for the long-term satellite service."

NBN declined to comment on whether it had been approached by the government for assistance on blocking copyright-infringing sources of traffic at a wholesale level.

[weirdo]

Live Stream: Sky Muster Satellite Launch

[gordon_s1942]

Live Stream: Sky Muster Satellite Launch

I get the message its a 'Private Video' but I am guessing its what I saw this morning on SkyNews announcing the launch of the first of 2 Satellites for Internet coverage for those neither cable or wireless Internet will be available.

where it is to be 'Parked' once its in orbit?

[weirdo]

yeah, got the same here gordon, but then it was after the event for me
if you're keen here's another vid

[Tiny]

Got this email today.

Thursday, 01 October 2015

A note from Tony Bundrock, Activ8me CEO
I am sending you a note as a valued customers to inform you about the exciting upcoming transition to the new nbn satellite service.
The first new nbn satellite has launched into the sky!
nbn have commenced preparations for the new nbn satellite. The first of their two new satellites was launched successfully today 1st October 2015 at 6:30am. The second satellite will be launched mid next year.
The new nbn satellite promises better overall performance than what is currently being received on the other satellite services. Some nbn satellite customers have been inconvenienced by the limited bandwidth available on the nbn Interim Satellite Service and the IPSTAR satellite is also an older technology reaching the end of its life cycle.
The new nbn satellite will be greatly improved and promises to deliver not only faster service speeds but a better quality of service overall.
The new satellite service differs from the current satellite services because it is delivered using brand new satellite technology and used exclusively for nbn satellite customers. This allows Activ8me to offer faster speeds (similar ADSL2+) to our satellite customers.
We are still working though plan pricing and data allowances with nbn and will advise plan options soon.
Be amongst the first to get connected to new nbn satellite
Keep an eye out for an email from us next week detailing how you can register your interest for the new nbn satellite. Customers who register their interest will receive priority to get their new nbn satellite service ordered and installed. We will also keep you updated with the latest news, plan pricing and availability.
A little bit about the satellite - Sky Muster
The new nbn satellite was launched from Guiana Space Station in South America. Weighing 6,400 kilograms, it’s one of the world’s largest communications satellites and will service more than 200,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote Australia.
So how did it get the name ‘Sky Muster’? A nationwide drawing competition was held inviting children to illustrate how the new satellite service will benefit Australia as a country. Six year old Bailey Brooks (based 400km outside of Alice Springs and a student of School of the Air) won the competition and the opportunity to name the satellite.
Bailey and her remote learning classmates named the satellite Sky Muster in reference to the term for gathering cattle and how the new satellite will ‘round-up’ and connect Australians together. Her drawing will also be displayed on the rocket launching the satellite into orbit.
New nbn satellite testing phase
As a market leader in satellite, Activ8me are one of three providers selected by nbn to assist with the new satellite testing phase. The test phase will begin later this year and go until the new nbn satellite service is officially launched and ready for connections in early 2016. It is very important that we are part of these preparations so that we can advocate on behalf of our loyal satellite customers.
As part of the testing phase, nbn requested a small number of existing Activ8me satellite customers to be part of the testing. Existing Activ8me customers that met certain nbn criteria were invited to participate. There are limited spots available and final selection was at the discretion of nbn. Selected test phase customers have been notified of their selection to participate in the testing phase.
Rest assured, if you registered interest with Activ8me and were not chosen for the test phase we will keep you up to date with information as it comes to hand. Furthermore, Activ8me will provide our customers with ample opportunity to get on board with the new nbn satellite and connect to a better satellite Internet experience.
Keep on the lookout for updates about this exciting launch from Activ8me.
If you have any queries please contact our Customer Service Centre on 1300 760 219.
Tony Bundrock
CEO, Activ8me

[Tiny]

yeah, got the same here gordon, but then it was after the event for me
if you're keen here's another vid

Thanks for that video weirdo, that was very informative.

I didn't even bother trying to stream the live event as I'm on the current NBN interim satellite broadband dial-up.

[tristen]

....where it is to be 'Parked' once its in orbit?

According to the report at , Sky Muster's final orbital position will be 140 degrees east, which will put it almost due north of Adelaide (138 degrees east).

When all in-orbit testing is concluded, the satellite's control will be handed over to Optus towards "the end of November, early December".